Positively Puzzled

Announcement to Musica Della Sera listeners! Meera Collier-Mitchell and I host Musica della sera, a classical music radio show heard Thursday nights 7-9:30 Pacific on KUSP , Santa Cruz.  I'm pleased to announce that the show now has a regular blog presence on the KUSP Blog Page . Please bookmark the link to the new location: Musica della sera Music Blog .  You'll find a link there to our playlists, as well as posts with information about the music we play, and also music video clips related to the programs. See you there! ─Nicholas Mitchell Nota Bene Comments, requests, suggestions, and feedback are encouraged and appreciated, especially during this launch period.  You can comment on individual blog posts, or tweet me at @puxxled or Meera at @MeeraHyphenated , or "friend" us on Facebook at Nicholas Mitchell and Meera Collier-Mitchell . (With the advent of the Musica della sera blog on KUSP , I will no longer post program notes for ...

Program Notes for Musica della sera broadcast of Thursday, November 29, 2012.  (Available for streaming until 12/6/12 on the KUSP Music Show Player .) This week's program of Musica della sera opens with a keyboard composition of Manuel Blasco de Nebra (1750-1784).  He, like his father, was organist for the Seville Cathedral. He died young, and only a fraction of his compositions have survived─but enough to show his expressive talent. The influence of Domenico Scarlatti is immediately noticeable, but more the introspective sweetness than the dazzling virtuosity.  I only recently discovered this composer from this Harmonia Mundi recording that KUSP possesses  It features Spanish pianist Javier Perianes , also new to me. The virtuosity and sweetness of Domenico Scarlatti follows in a performance of Georgian-American pianist Eteri Andjaparidze . I discovered Scarlatti in my young teens through the wonderful recordings of Vladimir Horowitz, so I'm quite at ho...

Eating my linner on West Cliff in Santa Cruz just now I was blessed to watch a porpoise leisurely playing among the slow, low rolling waves. It reminded me of the times I've watched from a lawn chair a slightly younger Gabriel entertaining himself quietly and contentedly at a corner of the pool, engaged with pool toys and hydrodynamics, a moment of solitary peace between the raucous splashy times he'd have with other kids.

The fundamental problem with the American economy is that corporations as a rule do not consider a decent standard of living for their employees to be a worthwhile expense. They do not as a matter of policy take any role in improving the communities in which they operate when they could make a really big difference. They do not recognize that their focus on the bottom line in the long run works against their interests. They do not see the intrinsic value and humanity of bolstering the morale of their employees with decent pay, good benefits, and incentivizing profit shares. They do not see the obscenity and recklessness of CEO salaries that are hundreds, even thousands! , of times higher than the average pay rate of their workers. They do not see thriving lives of the individuals they employ as a damn fine accomplishment, an end in itself. They reject the notion that the fundamental American value, the pursuit of happiness, and not the one-dimensional obsession of the p...

It's been 10 months since my last confession, Father. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) The Princess and the Frog (2009) Elephant Walk (1954) True Grit (2010) Big Fish (2003) Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Amélie (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain) (2001) Operation Mad Ball (1957) Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) Megamind (2010) The Green Hornet (2011) A Prairie Home Companion (2006) The Man in the White Suit (1951) The Getaway (1972) Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963) The Notorious Landlad y (1962) En la cama (2005) Let's Make Love (1960) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) Dr. Zhivago (1965) Rango (2011) Lady Chatterley's Lover (2006) The World is Not Enough (1999) State Fair (1945) Day for Night (La nuit américaine) (1973) Rebecca (1940) Die Another Day (2002) The Notorious Bettie Page (2005) An American Werewolf in London (1981) Cast Away (2000) Frisco Jenny (1932) Thor (2011) Almost Famous (2000) District 9 (20...

Condensed email exchange in which our hero gets feedback for a purchase report he created. Nicholas: I’ve installed the new Purchase report in the Report Test Environment folder of the Report Manager site. Let me know if it looks good, or needs changes, or if you’d like me to move it into the main production XXX Report Set . John: It looks good! I think it can be put into production, Kathleen? Kathleen: I love it and Melanie thought it was great too. Nicholas: Okay, the Purchase Report is now the newest addition to the XXX Report Set . John: I’m not so sure about the colors… Nicholas: Now you tell me! (The report writer utility created the color scheme. ) John: I don’t really care, I’m kidding… Kathleen: I like the soft green and yellow. Seems fresh and a little organic, kind of like daisies in a meadow on a warm springtime day. Nicholas: As I was saying, I took great care to craft the color scheme for maximal user-friendliness. John: You guys are both sick… Kathleen: Swee...

It's getting harder and harder to remember all the notable people who have blocked me ( @puxxled ) on Twitter. Most are understandable, people I've disagreed with stridently, but hopefully with intelligence and some humor. Others are people whose work and ideas I enjoy, and wish to engage and share ideas with for the fun of it. The frustrating thing is, one doesn't usually get an explanation when someone decides to block you with one blip of the block button; getting rid of you like a gnat on an elbow. In most cases, the exact issue that triggered it isn't clear. Often you don't find out till weeks later. I'm kind of sensitive to being blocked, it can bum me out for days. Okay, oversensitive. But in a way, it's kind of intriguing wondering why they did. I decided the best way to keep track of this rarefied group was to corral them all into a blog post, so here goes. You always remember your first. Mine was Joe Scarborough , a former Florida Repub...